Somewhere in a frozen tundra.

"Ugh" I groaned as I woke up.

"Where the fuck am I." I wondered as I looked around seeing nothing but snow covering the landscape. Trying to stand up only ended up with my face being planted in the snow.

"Ah, what the hell" I tried once more, stumbling forward and almost falling on my face once more but managing to catch myself myself with my arms before I got another mouthful of snow. Weirdly enough I felt more comfortable on all fours than when I tried to stand up.

I brought a hand up to rub my face but winced as something hard met my nose.

"Huh.. well that's wei-" I froze when I actually paid attention to myself and realized it wasn't a hand rubbing my face but a hoof.

I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach as I decided to take a good look at myself.

The hoof was attached to an appendage covered in somewhat lilac fur, and I started to twist my head this way and that and noticed that my whole body was covered in fur, I rubbed my head and felt two short protrusions growing out of it.

"What the hell, am I a goat or something" I felt something on my neck and chest area and when I looked down I could see I was wearing some kind of red collar/harness, it also had a multitude of golden spheres around the surprisingly comfortable leather of the collar section, they each had strangely familiar symbols carved into them, all but the one that laid in the middle of my chest.

I made a note to take a good look at myself as soon as I found a mirror and moved on.

'Ok, let's try walking, for now, I can worry about my appearance later when I'm not out in the middle of a frozen wasteland.' I thought to myself as I tried to move forward. It was surprisingly natural to do so and in a few moments, I was going at a steady trot.

I decided to head towards the mountains first, either I find someone or at the very least a good vantage point to take a look around.

While I was walking there I realized that the snow all around me wasn't bothering me at all and even the freezing winds only felt like I had gone out with short sleeves on a windy day. ' Still, I wonder what this warm feeling in my chest is.'

1 hour later

While I was heading to the mountains I realized the warmth coming from my chest wasn't really natural so I closed my eyes and started focusing on it, after a moment I realized it felt fluid in a way and tried to move it with limited success.

What I didn't notice with my eyes closed was that whenever I tried to move it my horns would glow a bright red with flecks of black in it.

I was broken out of my focus when I bumped into something hard, opening my eyes I realized I had walked into the mountain. 'Damn was I really that distracted'.

I looked at the mountain and started thinking about ways of climbing it when I had a potentially stupid idea. ' Walking seemed to be instinctual to me despite being in a different body and since I'm some kind of goat or ram maybe I can just...'

I decided to test my theory and looked for the nearest protrusion or foothold and prepared to jump. 'Well let's hope it works, otherwise, this will be really embarrassing' I thought to myself before leaping, when I landed my hooves barely touched the ground for a second before I was leaping towards the next one.

Before I knew it I was climbing the mountain at a surprising speed. 'Yup' I thought 'caprinae are the best.'

In a little more than five minutes I was able to see the top, with a final hop I reached it and realized it wasn't the top but what looked like a flat area before a massive cave entrance, looking above it I realized the mountain ended just a few feet above it.

Surprisingly I wasn't even breathing heavily despite walking for an hour and jumping my way up a mountain. I looked into the cave but couldn't see anything after a few feet due to the darkness, still, I got a bad feeling about it and decided against going inside in favor of doing what I came up here for in the first place.

Looking away from the cave I paid attention to the sun's position and realized I walked north, looking into the distance I could see snow everywhere besides the mountain range that stretched to my sides and what seemed to be green at the very edge of what my vision could reach.

I looked at it for a moment before groaning at the realization that if I walked in the opposite direction to the mountains towards the south I would have probably seen the trees in the distance in a few minutes of walking. I sighed as I realized my mistake "Well there goes an hour of walking wasted."

I decided to not kick myself about it and just sit down and examine the warm feeling again.

I tried to move it once again but was met with failure, I gave a frustrated sigh but when I opened my eyes, for a moment I noticed a red glow 'huh, what was that.

I decided to try moving the warmth again but I kept my eyes open, that's when I noticed a red glow coming from above my eyes 'hmm is it coming from my forehead or my horns?'.

Thinking of how trying to move it was met with failure I decided to try and move it towards my head.

I tried with my forehead first but wasn't able to so I decided to try my horns next, for a moment nothing happened then suddenly the glow intensified but it didn't seem to bother my eyes as my vision remained unimpaired.

After the glow died down to a more steady shine I felt no different than before but I just knew I could do something with this energy inside me which I was going to call magic unless told otherwise.

I decided to try using it with my imagination first and it worked surprisingly well.

First I tried something simple like making some sparks and I just needed to picture it on my mind for a second and then it happened, I spent a minute just shooting colorful sparks with a stupid smile on my face.

Then I tried moving a couple of rocks and once again I just barely thought about it and it happened, I spent a while moving rocks around but I couldn't tell what my limit was since there were only some small pebbles and the occasional hoof sized stone.

'Well at least I'm good at multitasking' I thought to myself as I moved them in intricate patterns around me.

Once I was done with that I decided to try a classic. 'Ok you can do this, it's simple just concentrate and aim.'

My horns glowed brighter for a second then a thin streak of magic shot out into the sky. 'Ok now let's try a bigger one.'

A moment later a pure black beam with a red outline was shot once again into the sky. My face broke into a grin at that 'Bigger' I thought to myself.

A beam as wide as me was shot.

'more' I yelled in my mind.

A beam the size of a car pierced the sky.

'MORE'

A beam the size of a bus followed.

"MORE POWER" I screamed.

My sight was filled with red as a beam the size of a house was shot into the sky and in the distance, I could see it piercing the clouds and going even farther away before dispersing in a catastrophic explosion of black and red energy.

My grin got even wider as I realized that besides having to catch my breath for a few seconds and feeling a little hungry I was still just fine.

Realizing how powerful I was a giggle built in the back of my throat before it transformed into an evil laugh as I screamed to the sky.

"Power"

I started to shoot lightning into the sky for good measure.

"UNLIMITED POWEEER"

I kept at it for a solid minute before I finally stopped my little nerd moment and decided to test something, lifting my hoof I slammed it full force into the ground.

My grin came back as the ground caved in and cracked and the mountaintop shook, I almost started laughing again when I heard a growl behind me.

Turning around I froze as I saw two yellow eyes with red pupils staring at me, but what really froze me was what they were attached to.

It was like someone grabbed a constellation and shaped it like a bear, a bear the size of a small fort that was currently staring at me with what I could only call a hangry look. I belatedly realized I probably woke it up with all the laughing and lightning, and, you know, the localized earthquake.

'Wait' I narrowed my eyes as I paid attention to its color and the eight-pointed star on its forehead 'Is that an ur-' I was cut off as it roared and charged at me.

In my defense I'm pretty sure anyone would panic if they had a building-sized star bear sprinting at them, besides, it's not like anyone was going to notice a random mountaintop was missing right?

And so, an explosion of magic later, the whole mountaintop was blown away along with a little of the mountains to the sides.

I looked around and the bear was gone, I almost calmed down before I heard some grunts and growls coming from the other side of the explosively created clearing. I headed to the edge and looked down, my panic returned full force when I noticed the bear was clinging to the side of the mountain and was steadily climbing back up while giving me a very murderous look.

In my panicked state of mind when the bear finally reached the edge and was pulling itself over it instead of attacking with any kind of elemental attack or simply blasting it with as much power as I could my body moved on its own and charged headfirst towards it.

Before my mind or the bears could catch up to what I was doing I slammed headfirst into its chest.

For a moment we were in the air and in the distance I could see what looked like a glowing dome, then gravity caught up to us and suddenly we were falling.

In the back of my mind, I realized that for some reason this side of the mountain ended lower than the other and that instead of snow I could only see a massive ravine with no discernable end only darkness.

I was broken out of my thoughts as a massive paw grazed me and sent me spiraling toward the mountainside, my panic was replaced by rage as despite falling to our (maybe) deaths the bear was still trying to kill me.

"Fuck you, you overgrown carebear!" I screamed, and just before I crashed into the mountain I managed to orient myself to land on its legs first.

Not even a second later I pushed off it, launching myself toward the bear and once again slamming into it.

As we fell I kicked and punched with all my strength at whatever I could reach, the bear responded in kind and despite its size not allowing it to get a good angle, it managed to hit me a couple of times which surprisingly didn't hurt as much as I expected.

Luckily it seemed my hits were causing it pain, at least, we had been falling for about thirty seconds when the bear was able to grab me.

Before it could try to shove me into its mouth or I could either bite it back or just blast it we hit a slope at the end of the mountain and rolled right into the ravine slamming, then we slammed into the opposite wall before resuming our fall.

The hit caused it to release me and we were separated once again, we were falling into absolute darkness with only the bear's natural glow lighting the walls going past us, I wondered if this is what Gandalf felt like.

I didn't know how far away we were from the bottom so I once again concentrated and shot a pulsing ball of magic past the bear and towards the darkness, as it fell my mind was filled with an image of what the ravine looked like, a minute later it hit the bottom and I got an idea.

Focusing on my magic I surrounded my body with it and shot myself straight into the bear accelerating our fall even more.

We were about five hundred meters to the bottom when I stopped myself midair, sadly for the bear, it didn't get the same treatment and I watched as it slammed full force into the bottom, I was pretty sure those cracking sounds weren't just from the ground where it landed breaking.

When the dust cleared I was annoyed to see it was still alive and was even trying to pull itself up.

With a roar I dove down towards it and slammed into its chest, the bear gave a roar of pain but it was still breathing.

I was angry and for some reason hungry as well, when I focused on my hunger a new instinct made itself known as my horns glowed with my magic and a star-colored aura started pouring out of the bear towards my now open mouth.

As it flowed down my throat I felt it mixing with my magic, replenishing what little I had lost and making it even greater.

Along with the sensation of gaining even more power, all the bruises and scratches from the fight disappeared and as I looked down at the bear I noticed the more I absorbed the more of it just flaked away, I didn't care and just kept at it.

When I finished the only thing left was a patch of star-filled purple fur.

"Well, to the victor goes the spoils," I said to myself as I used my magic to mold the piece of fur into a hooded cloak with two openings for my horns, even if it was only a small piece it was still big enough to cover my whole body.

The moment I put it on any chill I felt before was erased by the warmth the cloak gave out. Looking around I decided there was nothing left for me here so I started to think of a way of getting out of here.

While I could just float myself out, after that fight I thought I was entitled to some theatrics.

Forming a clear image in my head my magic covered my whole body and where before there was a goat now stood a mass of black starry smoke with horns and two white glowing eyes.

Looking above and seeing the very faint light of the surface in the distance, a boom echoed in the darkness as I shot up and in less than a minute I reached the surface and didn't stop until I was halfway up the mountain.

When I stopped I looked north again to see if I could find that dome I saw earlier, which I did a few seconds later.

A boom was heard as the air parted around me.

10 minutes later.

Even with my speed I still took longer than I expected to reach it and the closer I got the bigger it became, and once close enough realized it was massive and, as I would find out when I crashed into it somewhere around the speed of sound, very very solid.

After I shook my dizziness off I tried looking past the semi-transparent barrier and could see grass and some buildings here and there almost like farms and in the distance, I could see what looked like a massive tower but at this distance looked very small.

I decided to look for a way in and started to follow the dome's curvature to see if I could find one, some minutes later I noticed what looked like two pillars made of a crystal where the dome touched the ground.

When I approached I could see that the barrier between the two pillars was completely see-through and I could see a hallway made of similar material and a light at the end. When I tried to step through I was able to and so I started to walk down the dark hallway.

When I reached the end it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light and when I could see again I looked around and saw that I was in some kind of courtyard with walls surrounding it, the wall looked like your standard-looking medieval wall only made of crystal instead of bricks or stone.

Looking more closely at how the parapets were facing inward and the towers with what looked to be artillery on them I realized this was built to be a choke point for any attackers. If the dome was as impenetrable as it looked -and felt- anyone trying to attack would be forced to pass through here.

As I floated around I could picture it, enemies would run into the courtyard only to be met with a closed gate and archer fire along with whatever artillery was on hand, even if they could break through the first gate there were still at least two more behind it followed by a long hallway that was probably thick enough so that they couldn't just break through its side.

When I floated over the wall I confirmed my suspicions of the hallway being thick and I also saw another smaller courtyard along with walls and a gate.

Deciding to continue onwards towards the tower I flew over what was probably some barracks and then I was passing extensive farmlands with some houses and what were probably barns all made of the same crystal.

I flew for some minutes and stopped when I noticed that around the tower was a massive city with many houses and roads, what I noticed was that besides some important-looking buildings and some parks, everything else seemed to be housing, and while some filled more space than others I could see that all of them didn't go above two floors.

Floating looking over the city and looking at how all the main roads were in what looked like a web or star formation with the tower at the center I took a closer look at it and it looked like someone built a massive castle with four legs and then added barad-dûr's taller cousin on top of it, the tip was being covered by clouds for fuck's sake.

How the castle tower looked along with the city and the bear he had encountered confirmed his current location and he didn't know if he should be happy or not.

'This must be one of those realistically sized Equis since from what I'd seen the crystal empire looks like an actual empire in size and the dome seemed to be covering the whole lot of it.'

Seeing as the tower looks black it's probably before cadance was sent here, at least I hope so, I really don't want to wait for more than a thousand years for the plot to start I don't even know if I could live that long.

Looking at the streets they seemed to be black but weirdly enough there seemed to be some green in it as well.

With a flick of my magic, I was invisible and descending, the closer I got to the ground the more green seemed to pop out in the streets and I also noticed how where the city ended the road seemed to spill out in a way.
When I finally got close enough my eyes widened at what I was seeing.

Turns out the roads weren't black but rather it was a massive army covering every nook and cranny of the city and the green I saw was from the helmets they wore, paying attention I noticed how not all were armed and that there seemed to be old ponies and foals here and there.

'Jesus, there must be millions here to clog out every road in the city, this is why I didn't see anyone on the way here, Sombra must have called everyone in the empire to the city, that's probably why so many of them aren't armed or are too old or young'

Shaking his head he headed towards the tower and that's when he saw Sombra sitting on a balcony with his horn and eyes flaring with magic, behind him he could see more soldiers inside the castle.

Concentrating on him I could feel that while he was weak he seemed to be slowly recharging his magic by drawing power from something 'the crystal heart most likely'.

He decided he didn't want to take any risks so he floated right up to Sombra and winded his hoof back, then he dispelled his invisibility.

Sombra barely had the chance to widen his eyes before my hoof shattered his horn to pieces.

It seemed that losing his horn broke his control over the helmets, or maybe it just messed with his concentration or magic in general as I could see the soldiers on the inside jerking before the green glow disappeared, it seemingly it took them a moment to realize they could control their own bodies again but when they did the sound of helmets meeting the floor was heard.

Over Sombra's pained screams the same could be heard all over the city.

While some of the ponies in the room broke into sobs or glared murderously at Sombra some of them looked reverently at me.

Some of the ponies started to advance toward Sombra but I raised a hoof toward them "You can have him, just don't kill him yet". While they looked reluctant they gave me a nod. I turned while ignoring the sound of Sombra's screams and of hooves striking flesh.

Looking over the mass of confused but hopeful ponies below me I thought of a way of getting them to hear me before deciding to take a page out of the princess's book.

Focusing some of my magic I used my very own canterlot voicetm.

"CITIZENS OF THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE HEAR ME!". Every single head turned towards me.

"FOR YEARS YOU WERE UNDER SOMBRA'S TYRANNY AND CONTROL, BUT NO MORE, IT ENDS TODAY, SOMBRA WILL FACE PUNISHMENT!". Over the crowd, I could see relief, joy, and hope.

"BRING HIM HERE". When a beaten Sombra was dragged towards me I grabbed him with my magic and floated us down towards the center of the square right above where the crystal heart should be.

When ponies saw him their looks changed to fear and apprehension. "Now for the first part of his punishment, he shall be stripped of the magic he used to cause so much torment."

Sombra seemed to come into focus at that and started jerking in my grip, his broken horn started shooting some sparks but that was the best he could do with it being broken and pain clouding his mind.

Dragging him towards me I grasped the sides of his head and leaned in to whisper in his ear "Thanks for the meal"

I opened my mouth and breathed in, black and green energy ripped itself out of his body and went down my throat.

It tasted...sick if I was being honest.

When I was finished I could feel his magic being purified in a way as it mixed with mine, maybe it was because he wasn't at his full power but the addition to my reserves barely felt bigger than the Ursa Major's.

I was broken out of my thoughts by cheering from all around me, as I looked between the limp Sombra the cheering crowd I got an idea, clearing my throat I spoke, "Now, as for the rest of his punishment." I started lowering him towards the crowd.

I smirked at them and spoke, "Well, I think you citizens should have the chance to get some justice yourselves." Sombra seemed to realize what that meant as even in his weakened state he started trashing and screaming, he was a meter away from the crowd-turned-mob when some of them apparently decided he was being lowered too slowly and jumped up grabbing onto his limbs.

I didn't bother holding him up, letting him drop as they wanted.

The last I saw of him was his fearful face before he was completely covered in a pile of ponies all wanting a piece of him, I simply turned around and went back to the balcony, I had barely stepped on it before I was surrounded by hugging and crying ponies.

While I tried to pry myself from the pile of tears and snot I felt Sombra's life fade. 'well' I thought to myself 'All's well that ends well, now to free myself and find the crystal heart.'

Author's Note

Well there is not much to say besides the fact that my favorite pony is fluttershy.

Edit: i rewrote some parts here and there added some words that were missing and fixed grammar mistakes but if i missed one please tell me.